I wrote this blog post halfway through my research paper draft, I think it’s really coming along with the idea of immersion. I wanted to share my introduction and what it is planned to lead to. Here is an excerpt:

“It was almost twenty five years ago that Pocket Monsters: Red and Green hit the shelves of video game stores in Japan. February 27th, 1996 marked the day in which the Pokémon series began with this historic release. Originally the game promised a role-playing experience, developed by Game Freak and published by Nintendo, with plenty of adventures to be had alongside monster-like creatures that you, the player befriend. It was not until 1998 and 1999 that we saw Pokémon Red and Blue Versions release in North America as the franchise continued to grow in popularity. Today the Pokémon franchise has grown to become the highest grossing media franchise of all time with a record $90 billion in total revenue, while also being the second-best-selling video game franchise to date, only being topped by Nintendo’s own Mario franchise (Burwick, 2018). Despite these achievements the franchise has always struggled with its interpretation and portrayal of gender. Options have been limited, and changes have been few and far in between.” 

This introduction I plan to lead into an in-depth analysis not of Pokemon Black as a game but of the entire Pokemon core game series. I want to focus primarily on the player character, (though there is plenty to mention in how the players mother is always painted as nurturing until recently, and how we never seem to have a father figure, and the moment we do in the Hoenn games he’s a freaking gym leader, but I digress),  specifically Kris, Leaf, May, and Dawn. Weirdly, I will actually likely look least at Pokemon Black despite it being my chosen game to play, as its issues mostly mirror those of the generations before it, and it is directly after Pokemon Black that we see our first customization system, in Pokemon X & Y. I also want to note when I mention the customization system how it not only allows for greater immersion, and to some extent offers an escape from the stereotypical “feminine” and “masculine” styles of characters, but it also adds in the first option in the games to be a different race other than white. As someone who is white, I didn’t notice this as a kid, nor did I mention it before writing and doing further research on this topic. It took the franchise seventeen years to add an option to be a different race, over eleven games. As I’m writing this I notice how the sheer amount of topics could blossom out of an in depth look at the series as a whole. From the issues with player characters, to customization, to female characters in stereotyped roles to the first black character resembling a stereotyped “mammy” figure. Though I love the Pokemon games, and they’ve come a long way, they still have a long way in progressing their stories and their games to be more inclusive, and I sincerly hope one day we might see a non-binary option or an option to customize pronouns within the games, as we have already begun to see shared styles of customization in Pokemon Sword and Shield. 

 

Works Cited:

Burwick, Kevin. “Pokemon Rules Them All as Highest-Grossing Franchise Ever”. MovieWeb. Archived from the original on June 24, 2018.

After four years we finally see the first female player character in the Pokemon games: Kris. After selecting the girl option upon beginning a new game the player will be greeted by her as their sprite, with her bike shorts, red shirt, strange sneakers and backpack. Kris isn’t very revealing in her looks, unlike Hilda from Pokemon Black and White, and her character has no defined color or style that goes specifically along with a

feminine look I would argue. Rather, she seems to mirror the player of Gold pretty well. They both wear shorts, and they both have extremely spiky hair that certainly could not be styled like that in real life. So, problem solved, right? Well, the creation of female protagonists would continue for years to come, and unfortunately most didnot mirror their male character as well as Kris mirrored Gold. 

The issue began with the creation of Pokemon Firered and Leafgreen, the remakes to Pokemon Red and Blue (I know its confusing, but Game Freak is dumb). Upon being released on the sweet gorgeous Game Boy advance, in comparison to the original Game Boy, it was time for various graphical improvements and more details to be added.

 As such the player characters got a revamp, or character should I say. Red was redesigned, now with some more details added to his jacket, hat and accessories. And a new character was added! Introducing the unnamed protagonist who never received an official name but was the second female protagonist in the Pokemon series to follow Kris in leading an example of what was to come. For simplicity’s sake, we will refer to her as Leaf, since that is what the fans have ultimately deemed her. Now Leaf is an interesting character, who sports opposite colors of Red and also opposite amounts of skin showing apparently. Where Red has extremely large pants that do not fit him at all Leaf has a fitted short skirt, that might not be appropriate for adventuring. She also sports a sleeveless shirt and a VS Seeker that color codes itself as Pink, for females, just in case you forgot, that she is female, and females like Pink, Ga

me Freak really is subtle with their identifiers. Again, it is not an issue that Leaf is wearing a short skirt, but it is in comparison to Red wearing baggy pants and a backpack, with Leaf wearing her skirt and a purse that seems to set Leaf apart as the stereotypical “female” character for “females” to immerse themselves in. These stereotypes in design would continue for a few more generations, but I wanted to go over one more.

Pokemon Diamond and Pearl released on the Nintendo DS, sporting amazing revamped graphics, new Pokemon, new tiles and of course new player characters. Dawn and Lucas are perhaps the most interesting characters we can analyze from the list of player characters, and yes it may shock you to hear but this is again another situation in which the female protagonist is shown to wear more revealing clothing than the male player character. Again we see the male character with baggy pants, and this time with red shoes, a red hat, a red scarf and a blue watch. In comparison, Dawn has a pink stylized hat, with pink boots, a pink watch, a pink scarf, a purse and a dress that ends in a short skirt with pink edges. Now we see how both are wearing scarves, right? An obvious nod to Sinnoh being the coldest Pokemon region. And yet, Dawn is wearing a short dress. Her legs are revealed, and her dress is strapless? Here I think Game Freak is being very obvious in how they show the female character as always revealing more skin, as if females themselves wish to do so and wish to sacrifice comfort, and safety, for style. Lastly, to make matters worse in Pokemon Platinum we see Lucas and Dawn revamped, this time with heavier clothes! Lucas dons a heavy winter jacket, and keeps his full length pants and scarf. Dawn too gets some nice winter clothing, a full scarf and long sleeves for her…dress, that once again exposes her legs. Still. Now that Lucas is showing zero skin it would make sense for Dawn to do the same, perhaps too much sense for Game Freak though. 

 

As I stated in my earlier blog post it took Game Freak the creation of four games to ultimately implement a gender option for females. Pocket Monsters: Red and Green both released in 1996 with Red as the only playable character. This continued with Pocket Monsters: Yellow, Pokemon Red and Blue and Pokemon Gold and Silver. Despite entering a new generation, and revamping the other games for global release no addition of a female character was seen. Some seem to argue that this is because of the limited space available on a game cartridge, but to that I would consider how Pokemon Gold and Silver added two new typings, over one hundred new Pokemon, had two FULL sized Pokemon regions and yet they couldn’t fit in a female character option? Well in fact, they could. Because with the release of Pokemon Crystal we finally saw the introduction of Kris as the female option for those answering “girl” to “Are you a boy? Or are you a girl?”. But before we get into that, I would just like to point out how the implementation of Kris into Crystal undoubtedly shows how the female option could have easily been implemented into the earlier games. Game Freak simply didn’t prioritize it. Why? Why wouldn’t Game Freak consider an option for girls to be a girl if guys could be a guy? And why would the singular option specifically be a guy and not a girl? I think most of you kind of have a guess as I do, and I’ll likely word it a bit less nonchalant in my paper, but this is a clear example of the assumption and marketing toward men being the sole and majority of players of Video Games. 

 

Despite the increased number of girls playing Video Games, now coming close to equal in the modern day, most companies seem to have chosen to only market toward boys and young boys when it came to designing their games. In “No Girls Allowed” Lien discusses this stereotype of video games being for boys: “A few aisles over, in the video game section, there is a similar marketing story that Maida has yet to learn. Unlike in the toy aisles, she won’t find an expansive selection of video games for boys and an equally expansive selection for girls. Most ‘girls sections,’ if they exist, are lined with fitness titles and Ubisoft’s simplified career simulation series, Imagine, which lets players pretend they’re doctors, teachers, gymnasts and babysitters” (Lien, 2013). This example clearly shows how the gaming industry chose to market their games. The “girls section” is said to possibly not even exist, and if it does the games are completely different from those epic adventure, fighting, shooting and creation based games boys might play, rather opting for fitness titles? Though it may not relate directly to my paper on immersion I want to explore this a little bit as it should be addressed as to why there isn’t a female option in the first few games, and why Game Freak chose to wait four years at all. It would seem to me that they simply wished to market Pokemon toward a boy audience, and didn’t consider that females would even play the games at all. In the next blog post I’ll discuss Kris more in depth as the first female player character, and how her sisters in being empty characters did her dirty. 

 

Works Cited:

Lien, Tracey. “No Girls Allowed”. Polygon. 2013. 

To continue off of my last blog post I wanted to talk about some of the specifics of Pokemon Black, while relating it directly to some of the themes and ideas I’m exploring in my paper. Pokemon Black has a whole host of female characters, but I wanted to take a second to talk about Hilda and Hilbert specifically. Now, firstly, I do plan on analyzing most of the player characters before Hilda first in my paper, and have done so with Red and Gold to begin with, but seeing as I’ve had the most experience with Hilda and Hilbert I wanted to focus on them for a moment, as it directly mirrors many of the things I’ve noticed of player characters in general. 

Hilda (left) and Hilbert (right) are the player characters of Pokemon Black and White specifically, and both are pretty different from a design perspective. Seeing as though both characters have no actual character to them, or dialogue at all for the most part, they are both vessels for the player to reflect themselves onto. However, the difference in design here is interesting. Hilbert here has plain sneakers with baggy pants, a blue sweatshirt, a blue watch, a red hat and a blue satchel. His hair is cut pretty short, as well, whereas Hilda’s is long and stylized. We see here some of the major differences in how Game Freak portrays women and men, and how at the most basic of levels these “vessels” are already preordained with some designs that seem to link directly to the stereotyped “fashions” of male and females. Despite Hilbert’s covered appearance, and most blue and red color scheme we see Hilda with short shorts, bare legs, boots with heels, pink laces, a pink hat, a pink purse and a pink watch. Thank you Game Freak, I don’t know how I would know this character is a girl if she didn’t radiate pink energy and show off her arms and legs as no boy could ever do. Now don’t get me wrong, I like Hilda. In fact, she’s my favorite player character and protagonist, and her style is amazing in various ways, but when set against the style of Hilbert, something is off. Both of these characters have little detail to them outside of their respective styles, so male and female choices should impact little in the span of your journey, and yet you need to decide between wearing baggy multilayered clothing or very little clothing at all. I feel that Game Freak designing Hilda specifically with less covering her body is meant to show us what most girls would relate to, which reinforces the stereotypes that women’s fashion sets and the pre-existing stereotype that female characters in games are meant to be some sort of “eye candy” for the male gamers. 

This trend continues with the other protagonists, and can be seen pretty early on in the series, excluding only one girl protagonist, the first girl protagonist. In the next blog post I’ll talk about Kris and how Game Freak apparently needed four years and the development of four games to create a female playable character. 

Coding has been the backbone of computer work that makes literally everything in our modern world work, directly or indirectly. Code is one of those things that can be easy to learn, but difficult to master. Take it from me, as I get excited when I create a for loop that doesn’t break after it’s third iteration. Code in of itself is a whole language that transcends borders and can be learned, given you have the time, resources and dedication to learn. At least that is what I thought until I learned that most major code is actually made in American English.

Julianne Tveten outlined in her article “Code is Political” that the major coding languages like C++ and Python are ONLY available in English. A lot of the functionality of these codes demand that you have some working knowledge of English to perform certain commands and actions. It was through the article that I learned about قلب, a computer language completely written in Arabic[1]. It seems that many of us naive English speakers take the language for granted, and don’t even realize it. My coding know how is pretty basic at best and utterly useless at worst. Even now I just barely speak English as a naive speaker. I could not imagine having to learn another language just to another language.

I believe that the coding world should be more inclusive and accepting of others as much as possible given the fact that the internet is a place that brings a lot of people and cultures together. There could be coders in France who have the ability to create amazing new things for us on the internet, but are unable to due to this barrier of entry. I understand that this is a challenge that has plagued the field of computer science since the introduction and creation of the computer. There are some solutions already in pay, but I believe that there needs to be a united front to deal with the issue at hand.

The internet was created with the idea of freedom in mind. It was created with the idea that anyone can crate what they can with their talents. But if we stifle the talents of others due to this unnecessary justification, can we really see that goal come to life? I would love to see more promotion of code converts, programs that allow the programmer to make code in their native language and convert the result into something that anyone can pick up and work on in their OWN native language. Such a task may be enormous and even costly, but I believe that such a task will bring us closer as one, as our world become more dependent on everyone working together.

[1] Tveten, Julianne, “Code Is Political,” https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/3dak5w/code-is-political, published March 1, 2016

Today I completely finished Pokemon Black, meaning I finished the main story of the game. To begin, it is still one of my favorite Pokemon games of all time. There’s something interesting about the games in Generation 5 that is not seen in any of the other generations, and that relates directly to its plot and characters. Unlike so many other stories the story of the Generation 5 games has a lot more depth to it, and it delves deeply into some less than safe topics for a Pokemon game, such as child abuse, manipulation, and the actual morals within the Pokemon world. The conflict in the game is in fact between the player character, or in my case me as Hilbert and N/Ghetsis/Team Plasma, but there is a deeper internal conflict in the Unova region, between N and himself. Note that beyond this there may be plot spoilers, which for the most part I hope to omit from my research paper. 

Throughout the story of Pokemon Black we see the story of our protagonist which we forge with our Pokemon team of our own creation, but we also see N stuck on a path preordained for him. Throughout the story he seems to consider truths and ideals, and his own place in the world, while ultimately questioning you, the player character, and your own motives. While playing I thought back to when I was a younger teenager playing this game, and how the question of whether Pokemon were happy with trainers had any merit. For any kid I think this question is a bit large to consider, but for the older audiences I think they can really appreciate how this explores some of the inner depth of the universe we don’t usually see. As a player you struggle with this question throughout the game while catching Pokemon, and battling them with other trainers. And N really makes it hard to dislike him, or question his own morals or principles, especially while he looks like that. Which leads me to my true topic of today, N. N is perhaps the most “feminine” male character within the Pokemon universe, with long hair, charismatic speech, and a less color coded look. Though we could all stop playing the game at the ferris wheel scene when we are finally close to N we must go on, for the deeper story is within him. 

I’m not sure if I will use this for my paper as of yet, but N’s internal struggles throughout the story of Black and White are what really help to set apart the story as a whole in comparison to other Pokemon games. He’s had a deep inner connection with Pokemon since he was a boy, and was raised alongside two girls who helped him through life. The girls, Anthea and Concordia, are also interesting characters in which they too were hinted at being abused like N. Ghetsis, the main villain of the games, has used all three children for his own means, fooling them into believing he has taken them in to help them in this world. Anthea and Concordia are the nurturing figures within N’s life, and N himself must struggle to see past Ghetsis’ lies to find the truth, while also seeking the ideals he so believes in. There’s plenty of other notes I have for Pokemon Black, but I think I’ll continue those in my next blog post. 

When considering the past player characters from Pokemon games as a part of my ideas for paper topics I first began to look back to the beginning. That is, the days of Pocket Monsters: Red & Green. Red, the player character and protagonist of the games was the sole player character in these games. I had played Pokemon Yellow way back when far after its release, so I brushed up on my understanding of Red as a character with a walk through of Pokemon Blue by Leuroi on YouTube. 

What I found immediately interesting of course is that I had always known that there was no female trainer character option in the original games, but I never considered the impact this might have on female players. I asked a few of my female friends about their experience with the earliest games and if it bothered them at all playing as Red. Back then it didn’t bother most of them since they were so young, but today they said it is somewhat bothersome and agreed that it somewhat breaks the immersion when playing a game as a different gender than that of which you identify with. I had my introduction. Red would pave the way for the rest of my paper from that point forward in how immersion can be broken through player characters, and what these player characters specifically represented through their designs and “character”.

I wanted to quickly note something about my paper, as I will use a word I stole from Hollow Knight to describe most of the player characters. In my notes I use the word “vessel” to describe Red, as he is quite literally an empty being with no shown emotion, desire, or actual character beyond his physical traits, much like the main character of Hollow Knight. Red however is a vessel for the player of the Pokemon games he is within. Players use Red to interact with other characters, catch Pokemon and do many other things in the universe. When I played Pokemon Yellow, I was Red, and similarly as I’m playing Pokemon Black, I am Hilda. Though the characters might have their own designs preordained I put myself in the shoes of those characters and create a type of persona for them. I believe different people like to do this differently, in which they create personas for their characters that either directly mirror their own personalities or are completely different. For me, I like to pretend I’m a badass Pokemon trainer who wishes to conquer half of the planet sometimes. Other times I like to consider myself a hero with an ulterior motive, who’s powerful Pokemon cannot be stopped by the mere grunts of some stupid evil team. Hilda as a character I can relate to in different ways. Though her design isn’t exactly what I might look like, or I might wear I can still immerse myself for the most part in being her. Whereas if I were to play as Hilbert the disgusting piece of trash that he is, I would likely have difficulty staying immersed. It is with this thinking that I continued playing Pokemon Black and taking notes on how immersed I felt I was, while also considering the female characters within the game and how I might be less immersed if I were a girl playing as a guy, or vice versa. 

 

I actually restarted my Pokemon journey in Pokemon Black originally. To better understand what a female who prefers a more feminine look might experience in playing the early Pokemon games as Red I had begun my adventure again playing as Hilbert, my complete opposite and frankly one of the ugliest protagonists to exist. But, I’ll discuss that in more depth later on.

A few weeks ago I began playing Pokemon Black Version in order to do research for my final paper. At first I had considered a few different titles such as Life is Strange, Hollow Knight and Celeste. I knew I wanted to do something that regarded the gaming community’s interaction with games, and how the game ultimately impacted those who became immersed within it. Particularly, I wanted to see how female video game players were impacted by the decisions of a company, as most games tend to make some sort of assumption that their player is a male to some extent. This somewhat ruled out Hollow Knight and Celeste for me. Though both games are amazing, they’re perhaps too amazing to critique, and they leave some things to be desired when it comes to plot critique or character critique and immersion. From there that left Life is Strange, which I had never played at all and seemed a bit intimidating to take on. 

So instead I decided to look into a series I had played all my life, Pokemon. I have always loved the Pokemon games and have always been interested in their creation, features, the companies that weigh in on decisions and why certain decisions are ultimately made. But, one thing I began to notice is that I did not look at the games through the same critical lens I did while doing my research compared to that of which I usually do. I’ve done plenty of plot analysis, and comparison of Pokemon games, dumb as that might sound, before and I think I discuss many important points the community is interested in debating. However, the ones I came upon while doing my research were different. I started to realize some of the stereotypes we’ve talked about when it comes to character creation, and how the very stereotypes I discuss through feminist theory were in front of my eyes the whole time. Short skirts, short skirts everywhere. Literally everywhere for no reason. For some reason I thought Nintendo to be above making the obvious stereotypical decisions because most of their games are geared toward a younger audience.

Anyways, I began playing Pokemon Black and started to take note of some of the interesting interactions within the game, particularly with female characters. One of the things I noticed before I even began playing was the age old question “Are you a boy? Or a girl?” It somewhat struck me how I could start to forge a paper over the lines as the entire Pokemon community seems to know them by heart, to the point they’re somewhat of a meme or a joke within it. I was interested in how Pokemon, to this day, sets gender up as a binary, between male and female, wholly separate with no other option. However I ultimately decided that I would stick with the idea of focusing on the female character, and how female players might interact within the game and immerse themselves. But, I planned to use this line and its context to focus specifically on the player character, as that is the most direct way in which the games affected the immersion of their players.

Back then during the infancy of games players were usually given a preset, defined character with already established looks, personality and range of actions. For a long time this was the norm. Since his introduction into the world Mario “Jumpman” Mario would always be easily identified by his iconic red hat and outfit under a set of blue overalls. His popularity let to always sporting the same outfit from title after title. Sure in some games he got some new moves and abilities, but the outfit always reamined the same. You could never play Super Mario World in, say a nice fancy tux and a suave tophat. Such an option had to be programmed into the game, and the space was limited on early gaming hardware. Programmers had to make due with what was given to them and was tasked above all to give an amazing gaming experience, so some features had to be cut.

Fast forward to now and the gaming hardware of old has been replaced with the new computers and transistors of today. There was a lot more space to work with, and a lot more opportunity to add more. More features! More levels! Even more adventures! And with that added space we soon begin to see more choices in representation. Particularly the rise and importance of the player avatar. Webster’s dictionary defined avatar as:

“An incarnation in human form; An embodiment (as of a concept or philosophy) often in a person“

It’s interesting to note that this word “avatar” was chosen and standardized in much of gaming culture. Perhaps it was due to it’s implied divine origins, where the player is God in this digital realm and all who inhabit it are mere playthings to be used and discarded. Maybe it was just really fitting to describe this thing which we create and grow attached too. Whatever the real or underlying reason, it can be agreed that the idea of recreating ones self into an environment that we rule is appealing and entertaining. Even more entertaining than that is the idea of putting everything on random and seeing what absolute beauty of horrid monstrosity you’ll create. It all depends on how much you actually care about your avatar. As quoted from Adrienne Shaw in her work “He Could Be a Bunny Rabbit for All I Care!”:

“Even if I decide to choose a seemingly random selection of options from a
character-customization screen, I must momentarily reflect on how
much I care about how I am represented in the game space. It is
the notion of player self-representation that determines whether a
person in a game is an avatar.[2]”

The beauty of gaming avatars of today is the fact that they are your creation that you bring to life! You can customize them with the limits of the game, and connect with them in so many ways. Want yo self inset yourself in a game of Skyrim? You’re allowed to do that! Roll-play as a slicked tongue bruiser in Fallout? You can achieve that! Just want to see if you can recreate a face that looks like a hamburger in Mii? That is valid too! The power given to the players of today allows for some much more inclusion within many gaming spheres. Customization is what you make of it, and using it as you see fit is what I believe to be one of the greatest progressions in representation.

[1] “Avatar.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/avatar. Accessed 11 May. 2020.

[2] Shaw, Adrienne, “He Could Be a Bunny Rabbit for All I Care!” pg 102, University of Minnesota Press, 2015. ProQuest Ebook Central

For the final week of lecture, we decided to talk a little about competitive gaming or esports (electronic sports) as a way to close off the semester. Although I did follow some competitive gaming competitions in the past, it was interesting to learn how big the industry has gotten over the years. According to Nicholas Thiel Taylor, “watching other people play competitive videogames is driving an industry worth between one half to one billion dollars” (Taylor). Most of the revenue from esports are generated through advertisements, sponsorships, and ticket sales. This shocked me because I never really thought there was going to be this much appeal for gaming. However, the more I thought about it, the more it made sense why esports become so popular. One of the main points that was touched upon during the lecture was the similarities between esports and regular sports.

One aspect that’s extremely similar are how teams are set up. Both esports and regular sports have professional teams that compete with each other for a prize. All the players on each team are all highly skilled and have significant knowledge of the game. This allows these players to pull off some of the craziest strategies or plays. Unlike regular sports, esports teams usually live in a team house (Taylor). This team house is where “sponsored teams sleep, eat, cohabitate and train for up to 10 hours a day” (Taylor). In my personal opinion, I find it absolutely crazy that esports players basically merge their personal and professional lives together like this. Both esports and regular sports teams also have their own dedicated fans which can start rivalries and bring people together.

In addition to how the teams are set up, both sports and esports are presented, to an extent, in the same fashion. When watching either sports or esports, there usually is a commentator explaining what is happening to an audience. These commentators usually have good knowledge of the game and even significant knowledge of the players. When we watched the League of Legends European Masters match, the commentators seemed to know the histories of each of the players and what champions they’re experienced with. These commentators also use a lot of game jargon just like in regular sports which also use their own game jargon. For a newcomer, I can definitely see how it would be difficult to follow or start watching either esports or sports. Like regular sports, esports matches online only show the audience where the action is. For example, in League of Legends, this usually comes in the form of when there’s a fight. For regular sports like football, it’s when a player has the ball.

Although it really surprised me how big the esports industry got, the more I thought about it the more it made sense. Esports follows the exact basic formula of regular sports in terms of audience retention and revenue generation. Although sports are ever so popular, I can definitely see esports catching up in popularity in the far future. Despite the differences, both sports and esports are important parts of our culture and serve as a way to bring everyone closer together.

Citations:

Taylor, N. T. (2016). Now you’re playing with audience power: The work of watching games. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 33(4), 293-307. https://doi.org/10.1080/15295036.2016.1215481